美国国家公共电台 NPR U.S.-Russia Summits, From Gravely Serious To Absurdly Comical

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

As we've heard, President Trump¹ meets his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, tomorrow in Helsinki, Finland. Over the decades, summits between the two countries have often been filled with high tension and great drama - and occasional wackiness. NPR's Greg Myre takes us back.

GREG MYRE, BYLINE²: Russian President Boris Yeltsin was staying at Blair House in 1994, the guest quarters across the street from the White House. President Bill Clinton later revealed that Yeltsin tried to slip out one night, only to be stopped by U.S. Secret Service agents who found the Russian leader in his underwear, slurring³ his words and demanding a pizza.

ANGELA STENT: I've certainly heard that story.

MYRE: Angela Stent heads the Russian studies program at Georgetown University. Stent says summits, whether gravely serious or absurdly comical, reflect or even define the broader relationship. She's studied these summits for decades and is part of a group of scholars that's met with Russian President Vladimir Putin every year for the past 14 years. At the meeting last October...

STENT: He criticized the Americans. He said, why are you Americans so critical of your own president? You're not showing him enough respect. You should let him do his job. And then, you know, two minutes later, he was really lambasting American foreign policy and all the terrible things Americans were doing.

MYRE: She notes that both presidents are keeping their options open.

STENT: But he has very, very cleverly never criticized President Trump personally, and the same is true the other way around.

MYRE: Presidents Trump and Putin meet at a time when U.S.-Russia friction⁴ is reminiscent of the Cold War. And that Cold War history teaches us that summits can be treacherous⁵. President John F. Kennedy was young, inexperienced and new to office in 1961 when he held two days of talks in Vienna, Austria, with the bombastic⁶ Soviet⁷ leader Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy was stoic⁸ in public remarks afterwards.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOHN F. KENNEDY: I will tell you now that it was a very sober two days.

MYRE: But in private, Kennedy conceded that the Soviet leader beat the hell out of me.

DIMITRI SIMES: Khrushchev reached an erroneous conclusion that John Kennedy was a pushover.

MYRE: Dimitri Simes is the head of the Center for the National Interest in Washington.

SIMES: In this case, he has calculated wrong. He got an impression that if you really put pressure on President Kennedy, he would likely to retreat.

MYRE: The following year, an emboldened⁹ Khrushchev sent missiles to Cuba. This took the superpowers to the brink¹⁰ of nuclear war before the Soviets¹¹ agreed to withdraw their weapons. While these summits were high risk, Simes says there was no real alternative.

SIMES: In the case of the Soviet Union, if you wanted to talk to them, you would have to talk to the Kremlin. That was it.

MYRE: The upside was that leaders could make things happen very quickly. Angela Stent describes the 1986 summit in Iceland between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

STENT: He was very skeptical¹² about Gorbachev, but they had this meeting, the first meeting. And they came out of it suddenly telling their aides - oh, we've decided¹³ that we're going to abolish nuclear weapons. And their aides were absolutely shocked.

MYRE: They never went that far. But they established trust that kept tensions in check as the Soviet Union collapsed¹⁴ internally. However, relationships based on trust haven't always worked. President George W. Bush initially¹⁵ thought he had connected with Putin.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GEORGE W. BUSH: I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward¹⁶ and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.

MYRE: But relations quickly soured, and Bush was criticized as naive¹⁷. Trump thinks he'll do better.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know what? Putin's fine. He's fine. We're all fine. We're people. Will I be prepared? Totally prepared. I've been preparing for this stuff my whole life. They don't say that.

MYRE: The world will see how prepared he is tomorrow in Helsinki.

Greg Myre, NPR News, Washington.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 slurring   

含糊地说出( slur的现在分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱

参考例句：

• She was slumped in the saddle and slurring her words. 她从马鞍上掉了下去，嘴里含糊不清地说着什么。
• Your comments are slurring your co-workers. 你的话诋毁了你的同事。

4 friction   

n.摩擦，摩擦力

参考例句：

• When Joan returned to work,the friction between them increased.琼回来工作后，他们之间的摩擦加剧了。
• Friction acts on moving bodies and brings them to a stop.摩擦力作用于运动着的物体，并使其停止。

5 treacherous   

adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的

参考例句：

• The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
• The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。

6 bombastic   

adj.夸夸其谈的，言过其实的

参考例句：

• The candidate spoke in a bombastic way of all that he would do if elected.候选人大肆吹嘘，一旦他当选将要如何如何。
• The orator spoke in a bombastic manner.这位演说家的讲话言过其实。

7 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

8 stoic   

n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者

参考例句：

• A stoic person responds to hardship with imperturbation.坚忍克己之人经受苦难仍能泰然自若。
• On Rajiv's death a stoic journey began for Mrs Gandhi,supported by her husband's friends.拉吉夫死后，索尼亚在丈夫友人的支持下开始了一段坚忍的历程。

9 emboldened   

v.鼓励，使有胆量( embolden的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Emboldened by the wine, he went over to introduce himself to her. 他借酒壮胆，走上前去向她作自我介绍。
• His success emboldened him to expand his business. 他有了成就因而激发他进一步扩展业务。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 brink   

n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿

参考例句：

• The tree grew on the brink of the cliff.那棵树生长在峭壁的边缘。
• The two countries were poised on the brink of war.这两个国家处于交战的边缘。

11 soviets   

苏维埃（Soviet的复数形式）

参考例句：

• A public challenge could provoke the Soviets to dig in. 公开挑战会促使苏联人一意孤行。
• The Soviets proposed the withdrawal of American ballistic-missile submarines from forward bases. 苏联人建议把美国的弹道导弹潜艇从前沿基地撤走。

12 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

13 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

14 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

15 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

16 straightforward   

adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的

参考例句：

• A straightforward talk is better than a flowery speech.巧言不如直说。
• I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer.我一定要你给我一个直截了当的回答。

17 naive   

adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的

参考例句：

• It's naive of you to believe he'll do what he says.相信他会言行一致，你未免太单纯了。
• Don't be naive.The matter is not so simple.你别傻乎乎的。事情没有那么简单。